Suicide Grief Support Forum

The Suicide Grief Support Forum is a public message board, an outreach project of the Parents of Suicides (POS) and Friends and Families of Suicides (FFOS) Internet Communities. The forum officially began on October 2, 2002.

Our mission is to provide information, support and comfort to anyone whose life has been touched by the suicide of another person. Connecting with others who have walked the same road can sometimes make a difference in how we survive a tragedy that may be incomprehensible.

The board is monitored by special volunteers who give freely of their time in memory of the people they lost to suicide.

We do not pretend to be professionals, and we encourage anyone whose needs are greater than can be met here to seek out professional help.

Hi I lost my dad a few months ago. I'm 19 and unlike your dad had never suffered with depression at all apart from a few days in the lead up to his suicide. It's difficult being a teenager that has lost someone. Everyone you know is in such an exciting time in their life and this just makes you feel stuck and unenthusiastic about life in general. I've been lucky in finding a great therapist. She gives me lots of space and doesn't pretend that she understands how I feel she just lets me share all the things that would eat away at me if I didn't say the aloud. Finding someone to talk to makes a huge difference, keep trying. The first 'professional' I spoke to was awful. 2 weeks after my dad died he asked me about the details of how he died (which I don't know and don't want to), I said I didn't want to talk about that and he said that if he felt that he was going to have to walk on eggshells that he couldn't help me

You will feel an ease if the counselor is right for you. Sometimes its hard to tell if things are working. But if you are feeling even an ounce lighter- it is. The first is slow going, patience required. When you try a therapist, a couple visits will tell you if you 'click'. You don't want a personality struggle to get in the way of the reason you're there. You'll know what feels right. You will also start to see progress as you make you way through this. It may seem like you will never feel any different for some time- even if therapy is working, just stay with it.

For me I know that it is helping almost mainly because it's not making it worse. It does not feel like she's intruding, you are able to feel things that ordinarily allow yourself to express. Sometimes after a session there is a kind of ease and peace from releasing all of the pain and other times like the first time there was a huge rush of emotion afterwards that I guess needed to break free. For me (this sounds awful I know) I don't even see the counsellor as a person really, just a tool. The last thing we need right now is another person's feelings to consider. I can say all of the things that I'm worried will upset other people. You know it's working if something bad happens or triggers bad memories and you think to yourself 'I'll ask my counsellor about that'

A lot of my sessions began in the car on my way to the appointment. I'd sort of summarize my week (or whatever time had lapsed) and talk or think on the way. That refreshed some of the "I'll ask about that" stuff. Looking back I think that made me feeling ACTIVE in the direction of my sessions rather than just seeing where things went. We could focus on real issues I was curious about.

The therapist was a tool for me to - the catalyst that allowed me to crack open things. Sometimes I would almost forget she was there.

since his office is on campus, i will randomly pop my head into his office and say something if it's important to me. We either talk about it then, or later on in the week depending. But he lets me get out of talking about things that I need to say. Like, for the last 3 weeks that i've been on campus, I've been telling him that there's something I really need to say, but he let's me weasel out of saying it every time. But I finally told someone last night after a meltdown and emailed someone else with ominous words, but it's the right person that they will ask me in a caring way til i say it, which needs to be said. But I can't ever get important words out to the counselor, so it doesn't work.

Do you feel like you need him to push you? It so tell him that. Maybe the person that you told could email the counsellor to tell them what you're struggling with. If you don't open up they can't force you to. It's hard but you can do it

Yes, the counselor knows I'm not a verbalizer about things so he has to ask questions and push me for the answers--something i told him to do early on. Th person that I did tell, ended up having an obligation to tell the counselor, which made it easier for me because I find it easier to tell the one person things than i do the counselor. so in the end, i had to go to the counselor's office and played my favorite yes-no game because I don't always like to explain things. The best thing that came from this would be that i now have someone i can approach more easily instead of fighting this alone.

Then there are days like today, where I go in for my regular appointed time with nothing to talk about because i'm doing okay, but get dragged into the counselors office in teh afternoon by the school nurse because a short phone convo with home brought me into such a bad anxiety attack and she couldn't calm me down after she found me 'hiding' from the rest of campus. I wasn't actually able to calm myself down until i left his office too and walked all over town first.

I started this group on facebook because I wanted to make an accessible group for support. This group is ONLY for teenagers. It's really hard at school because people will say things like "kill me now" or "I'm just gonna kill myself" because of little things like low grades. So here's a group where people will understand what we're going through.http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=gro ... 6764939464